The most entertaining Racing game i've ever played, plust it's free
Visually, this game is excellent, with great lightng effects, high-rez textures, and detailed shadows. and it runs well on even the most modest of systmes, i have it installed on my laptop which has a intel GM985 graphics card, and it still runs great on lower setting with textures on med.
the online play is great, you can play on servers that use the games default tracks, or others where you can play on custom made tracks, some of which are excellent, even better than the ones that come with the game. you get to see you ladder position in the world, you country, and in my case my province, which is a really neat feature. it also has good buddy system. With each race, you earn ladder points, which are points which help you progress up the ranks. the number of ladder points you receive is governed by you ranking in that particular race, the number of players in the race, and the world ranking of the other players in the race. for example, you will get more points if you twelth on a server with 42 people, most of whom out rank you, than if you come is 2nd on a server with 15 people, and your rank is higher than theirs.
The track editor is one of the best i've used (albiet the only one i've used), and allows you to make tracks every bit as complex as the ones that come with the game, while remaining simple and user friendly. it's loads of fun to spend a hour or two pumping out a quality track, then have one of your friends fail on it miserably. the editor has two modes, simple and advanced, with simple just giving you a few very basic options and peices to work with, while advanced gives you everything you could possibly need to build a great track. its probably a good idea to start out on the simple editor, because the advanced one can be somewhat intimidating if you don't know what your doing. the advanced editor even lets you chose the time of day in which your track will be, giving you the options of sunrise, sunset, daytime, and night, each made buitifull by great lighting affects.
i'd reccomend this game to anyone, and by anyone i mean anyone, mainly because it's free, and if you don't like it, you simply get rid off it, and carry one with your life. but chances are, you will like it, and have a blast with it whether it be online with friends, or by yourself having a intense mental battle.